--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Chandler" <chandler_re@...> wrote:
> Hmmm... Only playing aces until you get to 10 bb is going to get you crushed in most MTTs. You are better off getting your money in bad a few times, IMO.
Maybe, maybe not. One thing you are trying to do is create the impression that you only shove aces. Then you capitalize on that impression later in the tournament when the blinds are more significant. The early rounds are not significant because the blinds are too low relative to the stacks, unless you can convince some donkeys to send over their chips.
>Harrington's red zone. Equilibrium strategy. ICM strategy. Most of the poker eggheads have something to say about playing push/fold short. It is an essential part of tournament play. I suspect KP is talking about something a bit different.
Who's KP?
If you want to play a somewhat more complex system, you can play Chen and Ankenman's jam or fold table, which has you shoving any pair, A3s, K8s, Q8s, J9s, T8s, 98s, ATo, KTo, QJo or better at stack sizes of 50 BB (in other words, jamming is better than folding). You jam more cards as the stack size decreases till around 2 where anything is a jam. As I stated before however, Chen and Ankenman make the claim that this is only the game optimal solution at stacks below 10 BB, above it is still a good solution but not optimal (optimal would be something like raising 2.5 BB and playing from there, in other words what the pros do). If you watch the final table at WSOP, you pretty much see this strategy being played. To regular cash game players it looks recklessly aggressive (ghost of Ungar anyone?) but it turns out to be near optimal for tournaments. Also, Sklansky has proposed a more complex version of his "The System" which also takes into account position and action before you.
http://www.google.com/search?q=sklansky's+system
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EAO9CFnHBw
